A few years ago I did an audition for an opera academy. I was not accepted. They accepted some other tenor that now is not doing so well. But that’s beside the point and I really don’t care about him. What pissed me off all those years ago is that they could not recognize my talent or the possibilities of development, even thought the voice was not in a shape and for they (or I on the other hand) wanted. So I was not in… Which is not necessarely for the worse.

The years have passed and I have done my things. I always loved being on stage. It was obvious already when I was dancing. I love the attention of the people not so much that I could show off, but more in the sense of artistry.

A few days ago we had a run through of the opera that I’m doing now. Offenbach (btw: the director became a much nicer person, but if something goes wrong, it’s still my fault, ha-ha … But I have good colleague singers who tell him that it’s not). One of the colleagues invited also his "friend", who is the artistic director of the very same aforementioned academy. I was not particularly pleased also since we’re rehearsing without décor, costumes, make-up and with only piano accompaniment. So one really cannot get the best of the pictures about what we actually do. But the gentleman came anyway and I was surprisingly calm. I had nothing to prove. I just wanted to do the best of what we've been rehearsing all those weeks.

The run-through went smoothly, no big mistakes, and it’s becoming a nice comedy. On that subject: it was the first time we had audience and it was the first time that someone laughed to the jokes we did on stage. Some of them are really cool and are very funny indeed. But it became obvious that laughter is a very contagious state and that we started to smile with the audience. No really laugh, but it’s hard to keep a stone face of the character you’re playing while the whole room is laughing. Not to myself: do not laugh with them. It’s also this that makes them laugh.

After any kind of performance I just want to disappear. I don’t want to look people’s in the eyes because I don’t want them to feel obliged to say something to me. Most of all compliments. I hate compliment-fishers.

Anyway the director came to me and was full of compliments. I finally found ground under my feet, my voice is stable and centred, and mostly I’m a born actor. He was genuinely flabbergasted. I offered myself (yes I have learned a few tricks over the years) for his future productions (thinking it won’t come to anything anyway, but it would make me feel better) and he said he’ll definitely think of me.

After a while we got talking again and he said that he’s actually a tenor short for the next production of the Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmelites (In my opinion it's one of the best operas. The story is absolutely shocking and the last scene is a killer read further down! The background of the opera is also a difficult one. The librettist was dying of cancer when he wrote the libretto and Poulenc's boyfriend was dying while he was composing this masterpiece. Needless to say all the nuns in the opera die and Poulenc’s boyfriend died shortly after the opera was finished ...).

So he suggested I would take one of the principal roles (certainly the principal male role) in the next production! Now it was ME who was flabbergasted!!! I went to see him the day after, still thinking he would have changed his mind (talking about self-confidence!)… But he didn’t so in September I start doing the Carmelites. Hurrah!

My first encounter with the opera was on the plane to Caracas.

The story is about a marquis, his son chevalier (me) and daughter Blanche. The year is 1789 in France, so not a good time for noble people. Blanche decides to enter into the service of God and becomes a member of the Carmelite order. The Terror regime finds them all guilty of treason and sentences them all to guillotine.

What I heard on the plane was the last scene, where they all slowly approach the scaffold and sing Salve Regina. When the first blade fell down and the first nun was decapitated I almost had a hart attack. The plane was flying over the dark ocean during the night, the lights in the plane were dimmed and only here and there one could hear distant talking or even whispering. And the fell the second blade. My heart stopped again. All those minutes untill the end of the opera, till the last of the Carmelites mounts the scaffold and if is of course Blanche, and till her soft singing is interrupted by the lethal guillotine, I was completely blown away by the music, the story and general situation. There came a silence and tears started to flow down my cheeks.

And now I will perform it. Absolutely surreal feeling of awe and respect.